The chemistry of catalyst preparation has become important in industry due to the large number of processes that catalyzed reactions. Investigations into catalyst preparation have explored different catalyst materials, catalyst combinations, and the chemistry of linking a catalyst to a support. Often, however, a catalyst may be functional in a process, but the catalyst is not active enough or stable under the requisite reaction conditions. For example, polymers have been used to link catalyst materials to supports, which may be useful for some catalytic reactions. On the other hand, the same catalyst material may be useful in a catalytic reaction that has higher temperature and/or pressure operating conditions where the polymer linker is not stable. Thus, there still remains a need to improve the chemistry of catalyst preparation to achieve stable catalysts that can operate at a wide range of temperatures and pressures as well as at the higher end of operating temperatures and pressures. Many reactions require high temperatures and pressures to achieve catalyst productivity desirable for practical applications, and hence one of the goals in catalysis research is to develop catalytic materials that will work at lower temperatures and pressures without affecting the performance. For example, reducing the metal particle size to nano-scale can enhance the active metal surface area for the same bulk composition of the metal in a catalyst and lead to increased activity and in some cases a selectivity of the products.